WASHINGTON (Gray DC) – Lots of challenges come with buying your first home – high interest rates, lack of inventory, and sticker shock.
This week, President Trump signed an executive order that could help even the playing field.
The order bans Wall Street Investors from buying up single family homes en masse.
Corporate landlords have been using this buy-to-rent strategy since 2012.
It eats up inventory, keeps prices high, and boxes out would-be first time homeowners.
Michael Negron with the Center for American Progress says corporations, like Blackstone, only own about 1% of all single-family homes nationwide.
“It wouldn’t seem like it’s a major factor nationally,” explains Negron, “but in some Sunbelt markets like Atlanta, Phoenix, Houston, Charlotte it is a big deal. The institutional investors own anywhere from 20 to 30% of homes for rent in these markets, and they are increasingly a large share up to 30% in some places of homes that are sold.”
That corporate advantage makes it much harder for individuals and families to break into the market.
“If you’re a homebuyer and you’ve got your down payment, you might find yourself up against an institutional investor who can buy it with cash,” said Negron.
President Trump’s executive order aims to end the practice.
“America will not become a nation of renters,” said the President.
The executive order gives individuals, not corporations first dibs on foreclosed homes. It’s a Biden-era rule that President Trump reversed, and is now re-instating.
It also sets reviews for acquisitions by large institutional investors.
Negron says it’s a start, but to truly address the housing crisis, we have to build more homes.
“To get real housing affordability, we just need to build more homes,” said Negron. “The President is making it harder – tariffs are adding about $17,500 to the typical cost of building at home. Immigration raids are affecting a workforce that is very heavily immigrant. About a third of construction firms have reported an enforcement action taken at location, a construction location.”
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